Sixty-Six Billion Pounds Bury Manifesto Pledges
Starmer's tax surge dwarfs promised £10 billion cap amid G7-worst indicators
Labour's £66 billion tax rises shatter fiscal restraint vows, with employment pledges and growth targets also abandoned. Economic stagnation follows predictable leadership pivots across parties.
Keir Starmer’s Labour government imposed £66 billion in tax rises across two budgets.
The 2024 manifesto capped increases at under £10 billion, targeting only private schools and non-doms while pledging “sound money and economic stability.”
Voters received National Insurance hikes, threshold freezes, and broader levies instead.
Manifesto Pillars Collapse
Full employment rights from day one vanished within months.
New hires now face a six-month probation, extending from the current two-year norm.
This retreat from union-backed pledges signals early capitulation to economic pressures.
Starmer’s career traces similar pivots.
A 1980s Trotskyite editorial board member shifted to Ed Miliband loyalist, then Corbyn “friend,” before centrist reinvention.
Each phase secured advancement; consistency never did.
Economic Indicators Worsen
Britain records the G7’s highest inflation, debt service costs, and tax burden.
Working-age sickness benefits climb fastest among peers.
Living standards face stagnation through the decade, defying growth promises.
These metrics emerged five months into Labour’s term.
Previous governments cited external shocks for similar shortfalls.
The pattern endures: rhetoric yields to fiscal reality.
Winter fuel payments for pensioners ended, then revived.
Welfare reforms surrendered to backbenchers, inflating spending.
The two-child benefit cap scrapped despite prior affordability claims.
Expediency Over Mandate
No major party escaped pre-election overreach.
Conservatives vowed tax cuts; delivered rises.
Labour promised restraint; enacted surges.
Voters select platforms that dissolve post-victory.
Institutions reward adaptability over delivery.
Officials face no penalties for discrepancies.
Prime ministers climb by morphing; economies stall regardless.
Power incentivizes betrayal of public pledges.
Britain’s decline accelerates as mandates evaporate into elite calculus.
Elected on fiscal rock, Starmer governs as tax-and-spend successor to 1970s Labour.
This reveals governance as serial reinvention, not reform.
Ordinary citizens bear rising burdens while leaders evade reckoning.
Commentary based on ANDREW NEIL: Starmer's shape-shifting has left Britain with a government we didn't vote for. A reckoning is coming - and it will be devastating by Andrew Neil on Mail Online.